I got a shiny new backpack from Osprey for Christmas. A Kyte, 36 litres. No, I’m most certainly not addicted to backpacks! But it’s just that you do need different sizes because you also hike different distances, right? RIGHT?
So, since we’re on the trail only for 9-10 days I thought why not trying to fit it all into my smaller backpack? I’ve already used the Kyte when we did some via ferrata during one weekend in May and it was quite comfortably. So I tried to squeeze all my stuff in and, miraculously, it worked! Without water the backpack weighs approx. 7 kilos – with water bottles filled it’ll be 8,5 kilos. So that’s 1,5 kilos less than on our last trail. Mission accomplished!
In addition we each swapped our bulky and rather heavy rain ponchos (500 gr each) for a – wait for it! – umbrella. Yeah, no kidding! I’ve been following a long distance hiker on Instagram and this guy hiking all the big American trails for years really used an umbrella. It’s ready at hand, you don’t sweat that much underneath and you don’t have to dress up (try get into a rain poncho during a downpour!). Of course, when there’s a lot of wind it might be less practical but we’ll try nonetheless. Maybe it works, maybe it’s just a new lesson learnt. 😉